By Eric Blankenbaker
The University is celebrating their 55th annual Shakespeare Festival with the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The festival has been a prominent fixture since 1950, when it began with its production of Julius Caesar.
“It is a great opportunity to expose the university to theatre classics like A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” junior drama major, Dana Panepinto said. “The High Schools that come have an opportunity to hear the words of Shakespeare, which is extremely important because his plays were written to be heard, not read.”
The play is directed by Chair of the Drama and Dance Department, James Kolb, and stars sophomore Dan Rice as Demetrius, and senior Emily Hartford as Hermia.
Shakespeare wrote the play in the early 1600s and it was first published in London.
According to the University’s web site, Shakespeare intended to write, “about the enchantments of love in all of their permutations: royal pairing, adolescent passion, ethereal bickering and a simple send-up of eternal devotion.”
The full-length play is accompanied by a companion piece, The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisb, with music, “In Praise of Folly,” performed by the University’s Collegium.
The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, was originally a play within A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It tells the story of two lovers who speak to each other through a hole in a wall at night.
Adjunct Professor of Drama, Jonas Choen, directs the companion.
The University’s Shakespeare festival began in 1950, when the drama department produced a version of Julius Caesar.
In 1951, designer and technical director of the University’s Department of Drama, Professor Donald H. Swinney, supervised the development of a (5 foot 6 inch) life-sized version of Shakespeare’s Globe Stage. It was originally housed in the Calkins Gymnasium.
By 1958 the stage moved to the Playhouse. Nearly 800 man-hours and 300 hours are required for disassembly and storage, according to the Dance and Drama Department’s web site.
Since 1951 students from local high schools have been invited to compete for prizes, by performing classic scenes from Shakespeare’s plays on the University’s stage.
“We are not simply doing a play,” Kolb said. “We are teaching [those] students how to present themselves, how to act and how to find character.”
The Drama Department’s reasoning for a persistent exploration of Shakespearean language over the past fifty years is also echoed in this years focus.
“If you can act Shakespeare and handle that language, which is the most demanding language,” Kolb said, “you can do soap operas, you can do realistic drama, you can do film work.”